Serabit el Khadim

The temple of Serabit el Khadim stands at an altitude of 850 m above sea level on a highland that terminates in massif rocky outcroppings. The highland is made up of sandstone from the Devonian and upper Cretaceous, the uppermost levels are schist rich in turquoise. The turquoise mines are concentrated in a more or less circular area 1.2 km in diameter to the S/W of the temple. Mines can also be found to the N/W. It is still possible to see galleries, mine shafts and tunnels with inscriptions dating for the most from the Middle Kingdom.

In one of the mines a script was discovered containing the oldest known alphabet. (signs that indcate letters instead of images), the so called Proto-Sinaic script.

Around 1600 BC Semite people living somewhere in the Sinai and the Negev deserts, and on the Canaanite coast invented the alphabet. A relatively low number of signs were chosen to represent not ideas, words or syllables but simply sounds of the essential consonants used in their speaking language.

The first signs of these alphabets have been found in the Sinai desert and the Negev desert (hence the term Proto-Sinaic). The script is more widely known as the Proto-Canaanite script.

The temple, on the N/E side of the plateau, has a surface area of 200 m2. During the 12th Dynasty the temple was only a rock-cut chapel dedicated to the goddess Hathor. Later rooms were added, dedicated to Sodpu. In the 18th Dynasty new expansions were undertaken: a long series of halls were built in one line, giving the temple its modern day appearance.

Hathor: the subduer of man, but also the goddess of joy, love and music and the mistress of turquoise. In this guise she was depicted with the face of a cow

Sodpu: the falcon god, protector of the eastern desert

The region around Serabit el Khadim:

The whole area around Serabit el Khadim was a major mining area during pharaonic times.

• Bir Nasib: (west of Serabit) the location of the furnaces used for smelting copper-ores that were extracted from the region
• Umm Bugma: ancient great manganese mines (south of Bir Nasib)

Gebel Maghara/Wadi Maghara: (south of Serabit); ancient turquoise mines